High entropy alloys for hydrogen production

Abstract

Hydrogen produced via water electrolysis is known for its eco-friendliness and is capable of substituting fossil fuels to meet sustainability goals. Water electrolysis is essentially a process of breaking H2O into H2 and O2 molecules, this process is not spontaneous and requires external energy. Therefore, an efficient electrocatalyst is required to reduce the activation energy. High Entropy Alloy (HEA) is a type of material that contains a combination of five or more metal elements which has synergistic effects making it attractive as an electrocatalyst over conventional electrodes such as Platinum. The objective of this study was to synthesize a series of non-noble metal-based HEA catalysts on carbon substrate support using a wet chemical reduction method with varying parameters such as type of elements and different concentrations and the samples were subjected to laser pulsed irradiance. The efficiency of catalysts was evaluated through electrochemical tests using a three-electrode system under alkaline and standard ambient conditions. Subsequently, the samples were characterized by SEM and XRD. HEA elemental combination consisting of Chromium and Copper with special electronic configurations could produce robust and efficient electrocatalysts to catalyse Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER). Moreover, factors such as the type of electrolyte used for analysis and the concentration of HEA precursor used for synthesis could affect the efficiency of catalysts.